The Breakdown of Family and the Degradation of Society

I was surprised by the statement made by former Florida governor Jeb Bush at the Faith and Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority conference in 2013. "Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans. Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity." (Aaron Blake, Jeb Bush: U.S. Economy needs immigrants because they're 'more fertile,' Washington Post, June 14, 2013)

Washington Post reported that, "for the first time, white deaths in the United States outnumbered White births. Population grew because of growth among Hispanics, African-Americans and immigrants." The non-Hispanic whites as reported by the Census Bureau represent 63 percent of the population and the number of deaths vs. births was a paltry 12,400 when compared to the 198 million non-Hispanic whites.

Demographic suicide of the West is certainly proven by birth statistics. Few of the western nations are having 2.1 babies per family needed to replace the ageing population. The fertile explosion in the birth rate of legal and illegal immigrants brought into Europe from North Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East will replace the senescent western population as early as 2025 in some countries.

Carmen Solomon-Fears, Specialist in Social Policy, reported that the percentage of non-marital births has remained steady at 41 percent for the past six years, a dramatic increase from 1940 when such births were a low 3.8 percent. What changed?

Societal attitudes about fertility, contraception, abortion, and marriage driven by the "sexual revolution" made it acceptable and legal to use abortion as a contraceptive, while men evaded the responsibility of marrying the women they've impregnated.

More than half of non-marital births are of couples who live in a cohabiting relationship. The shame of producing offspring out of wedlock disappeared when churches started celebrating pregnant teens on Mother's Day and the federal government became the Daddy and gave generous welfare and medical care to single mothers. According to Solomon, "Women ages 20-24 currently have the largest share of non-marital births." (CRS R43667, July 30, 2014)

Solomon-Fears said, "The entry of more and more women into the paid labor force also made childbearing outside of marriage more economically feasible." The belief that "parents should stay in unhappy marriage for the sake of the children" began to disappear after the 1960s.

Divorce became acceptable as adults centered on their happiness as opposed to the health and happiness of their children. "Marriage is now more likely to be viewed through a framework of adult fulfillment rather than through a framework of child well-being." (Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas, "Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage," University of California Press, 2005, p. 136)

The typical age for first marriage in the U.S. is 27 for women and 29 for men. Even though cohabiting relationships are less stable than marriage, lasting two years as opposed to 8 years for marriage, "cohabitation has now become a common method of family formation."

Unwed mothers' characteristics are:

Black women are more likely to have children outside of marriage than other racial or ethnic groups

Women in their twenties have highest percentage of births outside of marriage

Less educated women are more commonly single mothers

44 percent of out of wedlock births are to women who had already given birth to one or more children

Women who have non-marital birth are less likely to marry than other women

A large number of unwed mothers are in a cohabiting relationship (CRS, R43667, p. 12)

Statistics for 2013 show that:

40.6% of all U.S. births were to unmarried women

71.4% of births to black women were non-marital births

The percentage of non-marital births for American Indians or Alaska Natives was 66.4%

Gary Cobb, the former NFL linebacker, who is now running for office in New Jersey, attributed the success of his siblings and his family to the fact that, no matter how poor, their father was always there to discipline them and give them proper guidance.

He described President Lyndon Johnson's 'Great Society' anti-poverty program as a destructive force in black families, encouraging many black fathers to leave their families when single mothers were given more aid than a married couple in a family unit. "It was an incentive for the man to leave the home, and it's destroyed African-American families throughout the country," Cobb said in a recent interview.

There are many variables that contributed to the breakdown of family values, of family in general, and the degradation of society.

Atheist-based education under the excuse of separation of church and state unless it's a religion that liberals promote

Political correctness forcing the depraved minority values on the entire society promoted as speech censorship

The welfare/nanny state engendering lack of personal responsibility

Political corruption from top to bottom

Big money and Big Labor run politics and they run our lives

Elitist/globalist thinking that they can tell us and dictate to us through regulatory environmentalist actions what is good for our families

Change in the definition and meaning of marriage

No moral compass

The MSM brainwashed young and old into moral equivalency, taking more often the side of the criminal, spending inordinate amounts of time, money, and energy trying to explain why a criminal has committed the crime and ignoring the victims

Cartel drug culture and prescription drugs for psychoses

Irrational mass hysteria over the cult of personality

Reality TV giving a false sense of life and its meaning

Pornography and other deviant means of entertainment

Dumbing down of education; nobody is allowed to fail; we are all equal and special; narcissism; the ME generation; overinflated self-esteem; rewards for non-existent accomplishments

Self-mutilation inside and out through horrid piercings and tattoos

Lack of character building, blaming society for one's failures, not taking responsibility for one's actions and choices in life

About the AuthorIleana Johnson

Ileana Johnson is a senior columnist for Canada Free Press, retired teacher with 30 years experience, best selling author of UN Agenda 21: Environmental Piracy at Amazon, author of Echoes of Communism, Liberty on Life Support, and the upcoming book Communism 2.0 Twenty-Five Years Later. She is also a radio commentator on Liberty Express Radio on Butler on Business, every Wednesday at 10:34 EST. I travel and speak on issues of interest to me, communism, education, economy, immigration, and UN Agenda 21. She has a doctorate in Economics and speaks five other languages. She is a legal immigrant and proud American citizen by choice.